Black Metal Brewery: Yggdrasil (Scotland: IPA: 6.6% ABV)
Visual: hazy toffee to brown. Yellow to toffee creamy bubbled head that leaves suds. Moderate carbonation.
Nose: Toffee and custard. Mild gingerbread. Dried dates.
Body: Greenery. Dry digestives. Solid bitterness. Slightly dry overall. Toffee and vanilla custard. Kumquat. Hop oils.
Finish: Moderate bitterness and hops. Shortbread. Light granite touch. Light toffee. Dry. Light malt drinks. Kiwi hint.
Conclusion: Sometimes an average beer is kind of the hardest one to write about. Well, that was one way of giving away the end of the notes, wasn’t it? Ok, let’s see what I can make of this.
This seems similar to many American Pale Ales in that it feels quite heavily attenuated. There is a dryness to it, and the sweetness, while there, is not exactly overt. The abv and hop level says IPA, but if I had gone in blind I think I could have been forgiven for guessing APA.
The hops, as indicated above, are more intense than the average APA, and is probably the part that most says IPA – there is a solid bitterness to this, probably more notable because of the lack of an equivalent level of the sweetness. The hop character seems to be primarily simple bitterness and hop oils. There is a kind of kiwi and kumquat surrounding but that settles into the background quickly, leaving the forefront less interesting.
So, what you get is a pretty dry toffee back, a moderate but unopposed bitterness, and some not well defined rounding flavours.
*shrugs* It’s drinkable, kind of a third British Pale Ale, a third American Pale, and a third IPA. That should be an interesting mix, but ends up not really being so.
Well, I have talked about it for a while now, it’s ok but – when you get down to it, in this age we are spoiled for availability of good to great beers. I can’t really see much room for a merely ok beer like this.
Background: Ok, I admit it. I only bought this because it was from someone called “Black Metal Brewery”. Listen, the same logic led to me buying my first ever Punk IPA, so the method does have some past success. Named after a Scandinavian metal band, Yggdrasil is also the name of the world tree in Norse mythology. So, I’m fairly sure that is what the band is named after. Probably. During drinking I broke out some Svalbard to listen to. It seemed appropriate. Check them out, they are well worth a listen. Anyway, this beer was picked up from Independent Spirit. Pretend to look surprised please, for me.
